Issue 13

The Issue 13 Collective

Editorial Collective: Lyn Blumenthal, Janet Culbertson, Shirley Fuerst, Sandy Gellis, Phyllis Janto, Sarah Jenkins, Ellen Lanyon, Lucy R. Lippard, Jane Logemann, Ana Mendieta, Sabra Moore, Linda Peer, Merle Temkin

From the Issue 13 Collective

We had worked on this issue for some time before we realized exactly how huge our task was, and how inevitably we would not have room for much of what we wanted to include-even if we managed to find women to write it. We broadly defined ecology as the relationship between the organism and its environment. Even focusing on the human female didn’t narrow things down much, females being over half the human race and
taking up a lot of space in the natural world. If ever there was an area in which the personal and the political merged, this was it.

What can women do about the disastrous direction the world is takingl We looked both ways-into the past, at the earth and the earth mother images, at the current state of the ecology, at the future in all its dimness. We wanted to be active, to show that our province is both nature and culture. A few aspects we were determined to cover were: the necessity for a feminist theory to integrate social life, history and natural environments; the art women are doing in and about nature (and encouragement for that art to deal directly with issues), the equal importance of rural and urban ecologies; the contribution of women to our growing awareness of the needs, as well as the pleasures, of nature; the relation of women to militarism and to militant struggles for liberation; the callous exploitation for profit of Third World countries people and resources-to feed the greedy maw of monopoly capitalism; the dangerous emphasis of the Reagan administration on militarism, at the expense of social services and the environment.

We had also hoped to deal in some new way with reproductive rights and to produce an extensive consumer information section. Since these didn’t come together, we want to go on record as stressing the fact that woman's right to choose or refuse children and abortion is at the core of any progressive program. It affects population, poverty, psychology and land use, among endless other aspects of life. As we go to press, the Human Life Statute and the Family Protection Act threaten our most natural connections, while "scientific creationism" threatens our children's education, along with other reactionary ideological controls on culture from the New Right. Our responsibilities in the consumer area are also crucial, and here the burden is on us to educate, learn and, when
necessary, to boycott and "ecotage."

The answer, of course, is organization. From article to article in this issue we heal women of all races discovering that if you don't do something yourself, it doesn’t get done-in the world as in the home. You never expect "it" to happen to you, but when it does, it is a radicalizing experience. You are the others. It is happening to you often before you even know about it, even before it happens directly to you. The responsibility lies not only with those who would like to keep us powerless, but with ourselves. Communication and organization are at the heart of resistance. Art and culture are integral elements in resistance. Understanding this alone can help Us stop Them from moving mountains and changing the courses of nature.

Our cover is Mt. St. Helens because she is a connecting image—a hole into the interior and an opening out of that center-both nurturing and destructive. It is a female image because of the shape and the mythology. According to the traditions of the Klickitat Indians, the volcano is Loo-Wit, the old woman, keeper of fire. She mediated a dispute between the two peoples in the area by sharing her fire. When the dispute recurred, she and the two leaders were transformed into Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams. We called this issue of Heresies "Earthkeeping/Earthshaking" because we plan to do both. The eruption of Mt. St. Helens is our symbol of the “revolt of nature” because we know the important role feminist culture will play in that revolution.